The Pirate King t-2
Page 20
But Lord Brambleberry had brought wizards of his own, mages who had enacted wards on shield and man alike, who had brought forth watery elementals to quickly defeat the fireballs’ flames. Men and women died or fell to grave wounds, to be sure, but not nearly to the devastating effect the Hosttower’s front line of defense had hoped, and needed.
Volleys of arrows skipped in off the battlements, and concentrations of lightning blasts shook the wall, chipping and cracking the stone. The front row of Brambleberry’s forces parted and through the gap ran a concentration of strong men wielding heavy hammers and picks. Lightning blasts led them to specific points on the wall, where they went to work, smashing away, further weakening the integrity of the structure.
“Pressure the top!” Lord Brambleberry yelled, and his archers and wizards let fly a steady stream of devastation, keeping the Hosttower defenders low.
“What ho!” one hammer team commander cried, and his group fell back as some of the Waterdhavian wizards heard the beckon and sent a trio of powerful blasts at the indicated spot. The first rebounded off the broken stone and sent the commander himself flying to the ground. The second bolt, though, broke through, sending stone chips flying into the courtyard, and the third blew out the section’s support, dropping blocks and creating an opening through which a man could easily pass.
“What ho!” another team leader called from another spot, and a different trio of wizards was ready to finish the work of the sledges.
At the same time, far to the left and right, ladders went up against the walls. Initial resistance from the defenders fast gave way to calls for retreat.
The Hosttower’s first line of defense had killed Brambleberry’s men a dozen to one or more, but the swarm of Luskar, following Brambleberry and Deudermont, enraged by the ghouls sent by Arklem Greeth, and excited by the smell of blood and battle, rolled through.
As soon as the charge across the bridge had begun, the warships, too, went into swift action. Knowing that the Hosttower’s focus had to be on the eastern wall, half a dozen vessels weighed anchor and filled their sails, crashing in against the current. They let fly long and far, over the western wall and courtyard to the Hosttower itself, or even beyond it to the eastern courtyard. Crewed by a bare minimum of sailors and gunners, they knew their role as one of diversion and pressure, to keep the defenders outside of the Hosttower confused and frightened, and perhaps even to score a lucky throw and kill a few in the process.
To the south of them, another half a dozen ships led by Sea Sprite sailed for the battered surrounds of Sea Tower, leading their assault with pitch and arrows, littering the rocky shore with destruction in case any of the Hosttower’s wizards lay in wait there.
More than one such defender showed himself, either lashing out with a lightning bolt, or trying to flee back to the north.
Robillard and Arabeth welcomed such moments, and though both hoped to hold their greatest energies for the confrontation with Arklem Greeth and the main tower, neither could resist the temptation to reply to magic with greater evocations of their own.
“Hold and lower!” ordered Robillard, who remained in command of Sea Sprite while Deudermont rode at Brambleberry’s side.
The ship dropped her sails and the anchor splashed into the dark waters as other crewmen ran to the smaller boats she carried and put them over the side. Taking their cues from Sea Sprite, the other five ships acted in concert.
“Sails south!” the man in the crow’s nest shouted down to Robillard.
Eyes wide, the wizard ran aft and grabbed the rail hard, leaning out to get a better view of the leading craft, then of another two ships sailing hard their way.
“Thrice Lucky,” Arabeth said, coming up beside the wizard. “That’s Maimun’s ship.”
“And what side does he choose?” Robillard wondered. He murmured through a quick spell and tapped thumb and forefinger against his temples, imbuing his eyes with the sight of an eagle.
It was indeed Maimun leading the way, the man standing forward at the prow of Thrice Lucky, his crew readying boats behind him. More tellingly, the ship’s catapult was neither armed nor manned, and no archers stood ready.
“The boy chose well,” Robillard said. “He sails with us.”
“How can you know?” Arabeth asked. “How can you be certain enough to continue the landing?”
“Because I know Maimun.”
“His heart?”
“His purse,” Robillard clarified. “He knows the force arrayed against Arklem Greeth and understands that the Hosttower cannot win this day. A fool he would be to stand back and let the city move on without his help, and Maimun is many things, but a fool is not among them.”
“Three ships,” Arabeth warned, looking at the trio expertly navigating the familiar waters under full sail, and closing with great speed. “As our crews disembark, they could do profound damage. We should hold three at full strength to meet them if they attack.”
Robillard shook his head. “Maimun chose well,” he said. “He is a vulture seeking to pick the bones of the dead, and he understands which bones will be meatier this day.”
He turned and strode back amidships, waving and calling for his crew to continue. He enacted another spell as he neared the gangplank and gingerly hopped down onto the water—onto and not into, for he didn’t sink beneath the waves.
Arabeth copied his movements and stood beside him on the rolling sea. Side by side, they walked swiftly toward the rocky shore, small boats overcrowded with warriors bobbing all around them.
Two of the newcomers dropped sail near the fleet and Sea Sprite, their crews similarly manning the smaller boats. But one, Thrice Lucky,sailed past, weaving in through the narrow, rocky channel.
“The young pirate knows his craft,” Valindra marveled.
“He learned from Deudermont himself,” said Robillard. “A pity that’s all he learned.”
The wall had fallen in short order, but Lord Brambleberry’s forces quickly came to realize that the defenders of the Hosttower had fallen back by design. The wall defense had been set only so the tower’s wizards could have time to prepare.
As the fierce folk of Luskan crashed into the courtyard, the full fury of the Hosttower of the Arcane fell upon them. Such a barrage of fire, lightning, magical bolts, and conical blasts of frost so intense they froze a man’s blood solid fell over them that of the first several hundred who crossed the wall, nine of ten died within a few heartbeats.
Among those survivors, though, were Deudermont and Brambleberry, protected from the intense barrage by powerful Waterdhavian wizards. Because the pennants of their leaders still stood, the rest of the army continued its charge undeterred. The second volley didn’t match the first in intensity or duration, and the warriors pushed on.
Undead rose from the ground before them, ghouls, skeletons, and rotting corpses given a grim semblance of life. And from the tower came golems and gargoyles, magical animations sent to turn back the tide.
The folk of Luskan didn’t turn in fear, didn’t run in horror, with the undead monsters only bitterly reminding them of why they’d joined the fight in the first place. And while Lord Brambleberry was there astride a large roan stallion, a spectacular figure of strength, two others inspired them even more.
First was Deudermont, sitting tall on a blue-eyed paint mare. Though he was no great rider, his mere presence brought hope to the heart of every commoner in the city.
And there was the other, the friend of Deudermont. As the explosions lessened and the Hosttower’s melee force came out to meet the charge, so it became the time of Drizzt.
With quickness that mocked allies and foes alike, with anger solidly grounded in the image of his halfling friend lying injured on a bed, the drow burst through the leading ranks and met the enemy monsters head on. He whirled and twirled, leaped and spun through a line of ghouls and skeletons, leaving piles of torn flesh and shattered bones in his wake.
A gargoyle leaped off a balcony from above, s
wooping down at him, leathery wings wide, clawed hands and feet raking wildly.
The drow dived into a roll, somehow maneuvered out to the side when the gargoyle angled its wings to intercept, and came back to his feet with such force that he sprang high into the air, his blades working in short and devastating strokes. So completely did he overwhelm the creature that it actually hit the ground before he did, already dead.
“Huzzah for Drizzt Do’Urden!” cried a voice above all the cheering, a voice that Drizzt surely knew, and he took heart that Arumn Gardpeck, proprietor of the Cutlass, was among the ranks.
Magical anklets enhancing his speed, Drizzt sprinted for the central tower of the great structure in short, angled bursts, and often with long, diving rolls. He held only one scimitar then, his other hand clutching an onyx figurine. “I need you,” he called to Guenhwyvar, and the weary panther, home on the Astral Plane, heard.
Lightning and fire rained down around Drizzt as he continued his desperate run, but every blast came a little farther behind him.
“He moves as if time itself has slowed around him,” Lord Brambleberry remarked to Deudermont when they, like everyone else on the field, took note of the dark elf’s spectacular charge.
“It has and it does,” Deudermont replied, wearing a perfectly smug expression. Lord Brambleberry hadn’t taken well to hearing that a drow was joining his ranks, but Deudermont hoped Drizzt’s exploits would earn him some inroads into the previously unwelcoming city of Waterdeep.
He’d be making quite an impression on the minions of Arklem Greeth in short order, as well, by Deudermont’s calculations.
If he hadn’t already.
Even more importantly, Drizzt’s charge had emboldened his comrades, and the line moved inexorably for the tower, accepting the blasts and assaults from wizards, smashing the reaching arms of skeletons and ghouls, shooting gargoyles from the air with so many arrows they darkened the sky.
“Many will die,” Brambleberry said, “but the day is ours.”
Watching the progress of the insurgent army, Deudermont couldn’t really disagree, but he knew, too, that they were battling mighty wizards, and any proclamations of victory were surely premature.
Drizzt came around the side of the main structure, skidding to a fast stop, his face a mask of horror, for he found himself wide open to a balcony on which stood a trio of wizards, all frantically waving their arms in the midst of some powerful spellcasting.
Drizzt couldn’t turn, couldn’t dodge, and had no apparent or plausible defense.
Resistance at the Sea Tower proved almost nonexistent, and the force of Robillard, Arabeth, and the sailors quickly secured the southern end of Cutlass Island. To the north, fireballs and lightning bolts boomed, cheers rose in combination with agonized screams, and horns blew.
Valindra Shadowmantle watched it all from concealment in a cubby formed of Sea Tower’s fallen blocks.
“Come on, then, lich,” she whispered, for though the magical display seemed impressive, it was nothing of the sort that could result in the explosive ending Arklem Greeth had promised her.
Which made her doubt his other promise to her, that all would be put aright in short order.
Valindra was no novice to the ways and depths of the Art. Her lightning bolts didn’t drop men shaking to the ground, but sent their souls to the Fugue Plane and their bodies to the ground in smoldering heaps.
She looked to the beach, where the sailors were putting up their boats and preparing to march north to join the battle.
Valindra knew she could kill many of them, then and there, and when she noted the wretched Arabeth Raurym among their ranks, her desire to do so multiplied many times over, though the sight of the mighty Robillard beside the wretched Mirabarran witch tempered that somewhat.
But she held her spells in check and looked to the north, where the sound of battle—and the horns of Brambleberry and the Luskar insurgents—grew ever stronger.
Would Arklem Greeth be able to save her if she struck against Arabeth and Robillard? Would he even try?
Her doubts holding her back, Valindra stared and pictured Arabeth lying dead on the ground—no, not dead, but writhing in the agony of a slow, burning, mortal wound.
“You surprise me,” said a voice behind her, and the overwizard froze in place, eyes going wide. Her thoughts whirled as she tried to discern the speaker, for she knew that she had heard that voice before.
“Your judgment, I mean,” the speaker added, and Valindra recognized him then, and spun around to face the pirate Maimun—or more specifically, to face the tip of his extended blade.
“You have thrown in with…them?” Valindra asked incredulously. “With Deudermont?”
Maimun shrugged. “Seemed better than the alternative.”
“You should have stayed at sea.”
“Ah, yes, to then sail in and claim allegiance with whichever side won the day. That is the way you would play it, isn’t it?”
The moon elf mage narrowed her eyes.
“You reserve your magic when so many targets present themselves,” Maimun added.
“Prudence is not a fault.”
“Perhaps not,” said the grinning young pirate captain. “But ’tis better to join in the fight with the apparent winner than to claim allegiance when the deed is done. People, even celebratory victors, resent hangers-on, you know.”
“Have you ever been anything but?”
“By the seas, a vicious retort!” Maimun replied with a laugh. “Vicious…and desperate.”
Valindra moved to brush the blade away from her face, but Maimun deftly flipped it past her waving hand and poked her on the tip of her nose.
“Vicious, but ridiculous,” the pirate added. “There were times when I found that trait endearing in you. Now it’s simply annoying.”
“Because it reeks of truth.”
“Ah, but dear, beautiful, wicked Valindra, I can hardly be called an opportunist now. I have an overwizard in my grasp to prove my worth. A prisoner I suspect a certain Lady Raurym will greatly covet.”
Valindra’s gaze threw daggers at the slender man. “You claim me as a prisoner?” she asked, her voice low and threatening.
Maimun shrugged. “So it would seem.”
Valindra’s face softened, a smile appearing. “Maimun, foolish child, for all your steel and all your bluster, I know you won’t kill me.” She stepped aside and reached for the blade.
And it jumped back from her hand and came forward with sudden brutality, stabbing her hard in the chest, drawing a gasp and a whimper of pain. Maimun pulled the stroke up short, but his words cut deeper.
“Mithral, not steel,” he corrected. “Mithral through your pretty little breast before the next beat of your pretty little heart.”
“You have…chosen,” Valindra warned.
“And chosen well, my prisoner.”
Guenhwyvar leaped past Drizzt to shield him from the slings and arrows of enemies, from blasts magical and mundane. Lightning bolts reached down from the balcony as Guenhwyvar soared up toward it, and though they stung her, they didn’t deter her.
On the scarred field below, Drizzt stumbled forward and regained his balance and looked on with admiration and deep love for his most trusted friend who had, yet again, saved him.
Saved him and vanquished his enemies all at once, the drow noted with a wince, as flailing arms and horrified expressions appeared to him every so often from around the ball of black fury.
He had no time to dwell on the scene, though, for more undead creatures approached him, and more gargoyles swooped down from above.
And lightning roared and his allies died in their charge behind him. But they kept coming, outraged at the lich and his ghoulish emissaries. A hundred died, two hundred died, five hundred died, but the wave rolled for the beach and wouldn’t be deterred.
In the middle of it all rode Deudermont and Brambleberry, urging their charges on, seeking battle side by side wherever it could be found.
It was to Drizzt’s complete surprise, then, that Arklem Greeth did indeed come upon the field to face his foes, but not straightaway to Deudermont and Brambleberry, but straightaway to Drizzt Do’Urden.
He appeared as no more than a thin black line at first, which widened and flattened to a two-dimensional image of the archmage arcane then filled out to become Arklem Greeth in person.
“They are always full of surprises,” the archmage said, considering the drow from about five strides away. Grinning wickedly, he lifted his hands and waggled his fingers.
Drizzt sprinted at him with blinding speed, intent on taking him down before he could complete the spell. He dived at the powerful wizard, scimitars leading, and driving right through the image of the lich.
It was just an image—an image masking a magical gate through which tumbled the surprised dark elf. He tried to stop, skidding along the ground, and when it was obvious that he was caught, on pure instinct and a combination of desperate hope and the responsibility of friendship, he tore free his belt pouch and threw it back behind him.
Then he was tumbling in the darkness, a wretched, sulfuric smell thickening around him, great dark shapes moving through the smoky shadows of a vast, dark field of sharp-edged rocks and steaming lines of blood red lava.
Gehenna…or the Nine Hells…or the Abyss…or Tarterus…. He didn’t know, but it was one of the lower planes, one of the homes of the devils and demons and other wicked creatures, a place in which he could not long survive.
He didn’t even have his bearings or his feet back under him when a black beast, dark as the shadows, leaped upon him from behind.
“Pathetic,” Arklem Greeth said, shaking his head, almost disappointed that the champion of the lords who had come against him had been so easily dispatched.